


Insolence II: Defiance

by lanalucy



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Awkward Conversations, Developing Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Secret Relationship, Sequel, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4024921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanalucy/pseuds/lanalucy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill finds out about Lee's disciplinary practices.</p><p>Because someone reminded me: TRIGGER WARNINGS. There are explicit references to non-consensual spanking in this, references to corporal punishment as a military procedure, and references to Kara's past child abuse.</p><p>Mea culpa for forgetting that part when I posted this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insolence II: Defiance

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Insolence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/761035) by [lanalucy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanalucy/pseuds/lanalucy). 



> This is something I started well over two years ago, and it got bogged down in psych details. I'm still not completely thrilled with it. Constructive criticism is welcome - I have no practical experience with this particular kink or its psychological repercussions.
> 
> Thanks to newnumbertwo and laura_mayfair for beta and patience with my general moodiness over this piece.

Bill had come to Lee’s office to check on a scheduling conflict with the refueling ship. It was late in the day, so when he didn’t find Lee in the outer office, he walked toward the sleeping quarters and stopped dead in the doorway.

He stood there for a moment, doing his best to avoid jumping to conclusions. Then he decisively turned and walked toward the phone and instructed the communications officer to pass the word that Captain Adama should report to his office ten minutes ago.

While he waited, he cleaned his glasses then paced until he heard the hatch open.

Lee hurried into the office and when he saw his dad waiting, pacing, he rushed forward. “Dad? I was ordered to report immediately. What’s the problem?”

Bill took a deep breath and sighed it out, turned toward Lee, glanced over his shoulder at the doorway between the office and the sleeping quarters, turned back.

“Dad? What’s wrong?” Lee’s voice revealed his increasing anxiety.

“Son.....” Bill’s breath gusted out heavily. “I just don’t know how to ask this. I’m...is...what...” He stopped himself and took another deep breath. “What are you doing to her?”

“Who, dad? What are you talking about?”

“Kara is asleep in there, handcuffed naked to your rack.” He was watching Lee so closely as he asked he noticed the change in his posture and the widening of his pupils immediately.

“Kara’s....” 

Lee actually looked happy to hear about Kara, though the suggestions of this in his body language could be misleading. Had to be. 

“I can’t answer that question without asking her, dad.”

He started to walk past and Bill stopped him by snatching at his arm. “There had better be a damned good explanation for this, Lee. I want you both, fully clothed, in my office, inside of half an hour.” He waited a beat before heading for the outer hatch, and wasn’t quite out the door when he heard a sharp cry from Kara followed by “Gods, my knee hurts! Sir.”

 _I’ve don’t think I’ve ever heard her call Lee ‘sir’._ He shut the hatch firmly behind him and detoured past Saul’s quarters to see if he had any real ambrosia left. He had a feeling he was going to need a drink. Or four.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Kara, what are you doing here?” Lee hissed. Then of course, he felt guilty for snapping at her and asked, “Are you okay? Let me help you up.”

“I’m fine, Lee. Just too long on my knees. I didn’t plan to fall asleep kneeling on the floor.”

“Well, stretch it out or something. Dad expects us in his office in about twenty minutes. Where are the keys to the handcuffs?”

“You don’t know? The stupid things were on the shelf in your rack. I figured you had the keys. Frak, Lee.”

Lee looked at her. “Sir,” she added with more than a touch of resentment.

“That’s three now.”

“Godsdammit, Lee, will you just shut up and find the frakking handcuff key?”

“Four.”

“Shut. Up. Sir.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

“No, sir. It was just a practical joke. A lot of the younger pilots think of us as mom and dad. They thought it would be fun for mom to be handcuffed to dad’s bed - be waiting for him when he got ‘home’.”

“Naked?”

“They know Lee and I were friends before he came to _Galactica_ , sir. We live on a battlestar and they all think the two of us are frakking anyway, so they figure he’s seen it all already. I just thought it would be good for morale.” She shrugged one shoulder. “That’s in short supply, sir, and it didn’t bother me. It was a little prank.”

“That’s a bit extreme for raising spirits, Kara.” He looked from Kara to Lee. “Lee, find a way to address this with your people. This sort of thing could easily go too far. Aside from that, it’s inappropriate for them to think you two are in a relationship. I won’t have you encouraging that.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Bill hadn’t heard what Kara had said, but he clearly heard Lee say, “Eight, Kara,” and filed her wide-eyed response away for later.

When he asked her about it, something in Kara’s response that it was an inside joke was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on it, so he just let it go for the moment.

On one of his evening walks about _Galactica_ , he passed through the corridor where Lee’s office was, and he thought about stopping to say hi, but then he swore he heard a sharp _crack!_ followed by other noises that made him continue resolutely down the corridor. He decided not to walk Lee’s corridor at that time of night in the future.

When he asked about it, Lee’s stumbling explanation that he had knocked something over and broken it didn’t seem right, but again, he let it go.

The next time he heard Kara answer something Lee said with “Yes, sir,” though, he knew something was wrong. Kara had always been irreverent, and saved courtesy and respect for public addresses, where she always used appropriate greetings. Her relationship with Lee, though, had never been strictly formal. They’d always been friends first. Hearing her voluntarily say “Yes, sir” with a straight face set off warning bells in his head.

This time, instead of asking either one of them, he just kept watching and listening. He came to a decidedly disturbing conclusion.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Have a seat, Kara.”

“I’d rather stand if you don’t mind, sir.”

“I insist. Please sit.” He watched as Kara very gingerly sat in the chair across from his desk. He had been pretty sure before, and now he was certain. His son was beating the woman Bill thought of as his daughter.

He took a deep breath. He was not going to enjoy this conversation, no matter how it turned out. He started talking.

“Wait,” Kara interrupted. “That’s ridiculous! You think he’s _hitting_ me? Sir?”

“Isn’t he?”

“No. Well, yes, but not in the way you mean.” Kara flushed and looked anywhere but at him.

“Kara. Give me your eyes.” When she looked at him uncomfortably, he prodded. “What way do I mean?”

“You think I’m letting him hurt me, that I’m letting him _smack me around_.” She practically spat the words out.

“Yes. That is precisely what I think. Look at you, Kara. You can barely sit in that chair, and I know it’s because he’s hit you. Hard enough you are hurting right now.”

“He has. But he’s not abusing me, sir.”

“Kara, I’ve read your file. Even the stuff in your medical records we’ve never talked about. Maybe you just don’t understand the line he’s crossed.”

“I understand the line just fine, sir.” Kara was getting impatient. “I know what my mother did to me. I fully grasp the difference between that and what Lee is doing. You’re right that he wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t let him, but me letting him is not because I don’t know any different or I’m afraid to tell him no.”

“Well, I want it to stop.”

“Frankly, sir, it’s not your decision,” she snapped.

“Starbuck! If officers in my chain of command are abusing their authority, their subordinates, it is most definitely my decision, my responsibility, to put an end to it. The Colonial Fleet no longer uses corporal punishment as a means of discipline.” Bill’s voice had gotten louder, more strident.

Kara rose and started pacing. “I really don’t want to discuss this with you, sir. It’s between me and Lee.”

“It’s not between you and Lee anymore. It’s over!”

Kara stopped pacing and leaned into the desk, hands shoulder width apart, and looked at him. “It **is** discipline, sir. Lee started - “ she made a face, “ - _spanking_ me to teach me a lesson. He was tired of me disrespecting him in public and he was right about the effect my behavior was having on the younger crewmembers. But it’s not abuse. I always know what’s coming, how many. I have a choice about what he uses. If he hurts me, _really_ hurts me, all I have to do is say so and he stops immediately.” 

By the time Kara had gotten through that little speech, she was more embarrassed than she’d ever been in her entire life, including the time a teacher had walked into the showers at school while she was masturbating for the first time. No way was she telling the Old Man how she left each time desperate for about a dozen orgasms. She didn’t even admit to herself that she never told Lee when he was hurting her. She deserved what he was doing to her.

“I see. Does he use this method of discipline on anyone else?” That “Eight, Kara,” he’d heard a week or so ago took on new meaning.

“No, sir. Not that I’m aware of. Everyone else is too scared of the two of us to mouth off to him now that I’m not anymore.”

“This is not appropriate. For either of you.”

“It worked, though. I may have been mad as hell the first time - hell, every time - but it worked. I’m much more conscious of how I speak to my superiors in public. All of them, not just Lee.”

“It needs to stop.”

“Then, sir, you’re going to have to tell him yourself.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Dad? You asked to see me?” Lee stood at the hatch, awaiting his invitation.

Bill waved him in. “Have a seat, Captain.” He watched as the purposeful use of his rank made Lee’s back straighter, and made him sit forward on his chair.

“Sir?”

“Captain, I remember asking you and Lieutenant Thrace about finding her handcuffed to your rack. I also recall you both explaining it as some sort of morale boosting prank for the junior pilots. I believe she was protecting you, for reasons which elude me.” He leveled a long gaze at Lee. 

“It’s been suggested you've been overreaching your authority as CAG and as Captain, using it as an excuse to physically abuse your subordinates, particularly Lieutenant Thrace.” Lee opened his mouth, possibly to give some reply, but Bill stopped him. “Whatever lie is about to come out of your mouth, I don’t want to hear it.”

Bill stood and paced the confines of his office. “I’m disappointed in you, Captain. I don’t know if the stresses of war have gotten to you, but this behavior is not appropriate. Lieutenant Thrace has acknowledged you are the person who’s been hitting her, though she continues to assert it’s discipline rather than abuse. Considering her background, I don’t trust her to know the difference. But you damn well should.” He shook his head in disgust. “Beating someone in a fair fight, inside or outside the ring, is one thing, but if she’s handcuffed to your rack while you’re hitting her, that leaves her no way to evade or fight back.”

He took a good, hard look at Lee and continued.

“Frankly, I thought you and Lieutenant Thrace were friends, and maybe there’s something in your past that taught you it’s acceptable to use the people you love for punching bags. But understand something, Captain. I WILL NOT HAVE IT ON MY SHIP. It will cease immediately. Am I making myself clear?”

Lee sat in the chair, clearly unsure how to respond, or even if he should.

“You may answer, Captain. And if the answer is anything other than a simple, ‘Yes, sir,’ you’ll be spending time in the brig.”

“Then obviously, _Commander_ , my answer is yes, sir.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Why didn’t you give me any warning dad had talked to you about this?” Lee was pacing his quarters, irritation in every line of his body.

“He knew what he was doing, Lee. He called me in just before I was due to fly CAP, so I had no choice but to go straight to the flight deck when he dismissed me. When he sent for you, I was already in my Viper. I couldn’t exactly make a ship-to-ship call to talk to my CAG, now could I? He’d have known what I wanted to talk to you about, and wouldn’t have let Dee put it through.”

Lee had a hand behind his head, massaging, and Kara walked around behind him, working her thumbs into the edges of his neck until he groaned. “Gods, that feels good. Thanks.”

“He didn’t give me any choice, Lee. It was like he already knew somehow and was just waiting for me to deny it so he could rip me a new one. As it was, my CAP was pretty unpleasant with the memory of him yelling in my head and my ass still sore from the last time.”

“Dad _yelled_ at you?” He turned around to put his arms around her. “I’m sorry.” He pushed away, his mind obviously distracted. “What he said to me was basically that someone had reported me, and I was physically abusing those under my command, particularly you. He didn’t even ask me if it was true, just told me it had to stop.”

“So are we going to? Stop, I mean?”

“Do you want to?”

“Lee. You’re the CAG. I’m the frak-up. It’s not my call, is it?” The look she shot him was almost angry.

“Wait. Kara, look at me. Do you think we’ve been doing this because I _like_ hitting you? Because I’m getting off on it?”

Kara tried, and failed, to look away from him. “I don’t know if you like hitting me. I don’t know what you were like before Zak introduced us, or what happened to you in the two years between the funeral and the decommissioning. But it’d be impossible for me not to notice that spanking me turns you on - I don’t know if it’s the spanking itself, or if it’s having me under your control.” She looked down at his crotch for a moment before returning to his face. 

“I don’t like being spanked. I don’t like the dynamic between us - you want me on my knees, naked, cuffed to your rack. How is that fair? I can’t fight you off if something goes wrong, can't even see it coming. But I’d be lying if I told you I don’t walk away horny every godsdamn time, Lee. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.” Then, to avoid looking at him anymore, she turned to the desk and started fiddling with pens in a cup.

Lee didn’t know how to address most of that, so he latched onto the one thing he could. “You think - you think something could go wrong? That I would do something to actually hurt you?”

She flipped back around. “I don’t know, Lee! The Lee who does this is not the Lee who’s my friend!”

“Then dad’s right. I have to stop. If you don’t feel safe, if you think there’s even a tiny chance I might hurt you on purpose, then it’s not - I never wanted you to - “

He turned away, paced toward the wall, banging it with the flat of his fist, before coming back to stand in front of her. “This was only ever about getting through to you, Kara, teaching you a lesson. I stepped over the line that first time, making you get off in front of me before you could dress and leave. That wasn’t part of the plan, wasn’t appropriate. But I’ve never, not once, used what we’ve done to give myself any relief.”

“There’s no _we_ about this, Lee. **You** have been spanking **me** ,” she remarked quietly. “But I’ll tell you the same thing I told your dad. It worked. I’ve been more careful about how I address everyone in public. It’s made a difference in the way the younger crewmembers interact with their superiors. So even though I don’t like it, it has served its intended purpose of teaching me some respect. I don’t play and tease with you in public anymore, knowing that the kids are watching me, thinking it’s okay for them to treat you or anyone else above them the same way.” She looked down at her boots and back up at him. “It worked. But I won’t be sorry if it never happens again.”

 _I’d much rather the next time I’m naked in front of you, it’s because we’re going to frak. Without the godsdamn handcuffs. ‘Cause I am just waiting for you to break and frak me into next week. Sir._ Kara couldn’t stop her mouth from quirking at the automatic addition of the ‘Sir’ even in her mind, so she looked at her boots again. She didn’t want to have to explain to Lee what was so funny.

In an uncharacteristic move, she leaned forward and nudged his chin with her head, and he automatically pulled closer and wrapped her in his arms. She sighed. _This guy, I know._


End file.
